“You’ve got to have a doctor. I’ll ask, at the diner.”
“Wait a minute. I’ve got to think… What sort of story are we going to tell a doctor?”
“But it’s nothing the police need to…Oh, I see. He’ll know it was an animal, won’t he? He’ll start fussing about rabies. He’ll want us to report it, describe where it happened, so the police can check. If we said the dog belonged to a friend of ours-”
“He may wonder what kind of friends we have, that they didn’t call in their family doctor. Lying is complicated, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes telling the truth is more complicated. Michael, we’ll have to risk it. Maybe he’ll be sleepy and bored and won’t care.”
“Yes, we’ll have to risk it.”
“Does it hurt terribly?”
“Yes, damn it, it hurts. But that’s not what’s bothering me. I can’t risk being incapacitated. Don’t you understand? What happened tonight was the first round. And we lost. You don’t think he’ll give up now, do you?”
“No. But I wouldn’t say we lost. We got away.”
“Leaving one dead on the field of battle. She lost. She’s dead because she lost. Whatever she was doing, or thought she was doing, it failed.”
“That couldn’t have been part of his plan. He didn’t know she’d be there.”
“I don’t know what his plan is, that’s why I feel so helpless. But I’m beginning to suspect that my involvement isn’t coincidental. Why he’s got it in for me I don’t know, but he asked for me; he did everything he could to throw us together. He has something in mind. And until we figure out what, we’re fighting blind. Let’s locate that doctor. You go and ask while I try to think of some disarming lie.”
The doctor was suspicious and hard to soothe. Groggy and querulous at first, he woke up completely after a look at Michael’s injuries, and only the latter’s quick imagination kept him from calling the police. Michael managed to suggest a drunken party and considerable provocation; the smell of brandy on his breath went a long way toward convincing the doctor that the affair had been an ordinarily middle-class brawl, with possibilities of scandal, in which he was better not involved. They left as soon as they could get away.
“Well,” Linda said, when they were back in the car, “if the police make any inquiries, we won’t be hard to trace this far.”
Michael shook his head. The pills the doctor had given him were working. He looked much better.
“I don’t think we need to worry about the police. Not that we can go to them for help; our story is too wild. And if we’d been found there, with Andrea dead and the house blazing, we’d have had some embarrassing questions to answer. But a common garden-variety scandal can’t be Gordon’s aim. He won’t turn us in, and nobody else knows we were at Andrea’s.”
“I’ll bet the police would love to have some witnesses as to what happened there.”
“Not even that. Even if they find the-evidence intact, the logical conclusion will be that Andrea was carried away by her histrionics and had a heart attack. There wasn’t a mark on her. In fact-that may have been just what did happen.”
“You don’t believe-”
“I don’t know what to believe.”
“The dog. It was real enough.”
“Too real. I felt it, all hundred pounds of it. It felt like a dog; it even smelled like a dog.”
“But the others-the supernatural animals-”
“Werewolves,” Michael said roughly. “Say it. My God, are we going to cringe away from words?”
“Werewolves are real; they take material form.”
“I know, I’ve read all the horror stories. Everything works two ways, doesn’t it? Do you realize that nothing that has happened couldn’t be explained in rational terms?”
“But Andrea…I see. Self-induced?”
“She had a bad heart. And a firm belief. Linda, the phenomenon is known, documented-not only in the jungles of Haiti and Africa but in American hospitals.”
Linda’s eyes were straight ahead, watching the dark ribbon of road unwind.
“You know what your rationalist interpretation means, don’t you? You’re sitting next to an attempted murderess.”
“Forget that!”
“I can’t forget it. I’ll try not to think about it, but…Where are we going, Michael? We’ll be in the city soon. I’d suggest some place brightly lit, with lots of people around you…”
“All right, then.” Michael turned, his arm over the back of the seat. “We may as well drag all the dirt out into the open. Those other times, when you ran away to other men-what happened? What did you do?”
Linda didn’t answer at first. She had to fight to keep her voice steady.
“I ran away once. I told you about that. There was no other man, then or ever.”
“Then Gordon lied?”
“He’s a very convincing liar. It’s his word against mine, of course, and I’d have a hard time proving I was telling the truth. What difference does it make? How many times do I have to try to kill someone before you’ll admit-”
“Stop it! Under any circumstances, by any possible interpretation, that kind of thinking is dangerous. Don’t…open your mind to it.”
“I’m afraid!”
“I’m not. Not of you. Remember that. We do have to decide where we’re going, though. I know where I’d like to go.”
“To your friend-Galen. I’ve forgotten his last name. The doctor.”
“Reading my mind? How much of that conversation with Galen did you overhear?”
“All of it. Except when you went downstairs with him.”
“I hate women who are smarter than I am,” Michael said, amusement coloring his voice.
“Do you know, I almost ran out and tried to catch him. He sounded…wise. Wise and stable.”
“He’s the wisest man I know, and the sanest. That’s why I want to consult him. Not because-”
“You don’t have to reassure me. Not any longer.”
“Furthermore,” Michael muttered, “he knows something. Something about Gordon.”
“I wondered, when I heard the way his voice changed when you mentioned Gordon’s name. Do you think Gordon was ever a patient of his?”
“No, it was something else.” Michael told her about the letters. “I don’t know what they mean, though,” he ended. “There’s some hint there… But it slipped past me.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“Yes, I think you’d better. But they date to a period some years back, before you met him. When I get my hands on that cautious psychiatrist, I’ll interrogate him. The son of a gun must know more than what is in the letters. My dad may have talked to him.”
“Then let’s go to his place.”
“Can’t. He’s not back yet.”
“When will he be back?”
“The weekend, he said. Not before tomorrow.”
“Then where do we go? There’s the bridge, up ahead.”
“My place, I guess.”
“He’ll know…”
“What can he do there that he couldn’t do anywhere else?” Michael asked reasonably. “I thought of a hotel, but I don’t like the idea, I’d feel more insecure in an unfamiliar place. It isn’t physical attack we’re worried about, is it?”
“No, but…”
“Any other ideas?”
His voice was calm and patient, but Linda sensed his utter exhaustion. They were both exhausted, not only by long hours of wakefulness, but by mental strain. She couldn’t think clearly. Certainly she couldn’t think of any rational objection to his idea.
“I guess you’re right,” she said slowly. “Give me directions, then. I wasn’t paying attention the last time I came to your apartment.”
The streets were not crowded; it was well after midnight. Linda drove slowly, nursing her growing fatigue. The rain had stopped, but the streets were shiny with water, and clouds bumped the tops of the tallest buildings. They left the car in the garage, for which Michael paid, he informed her, a rent equal to that of his apartment, and walked the short distance in exhausted silence. There were no pedestrians on the street. The city might have been struck by some silent science-fictional weapon, and all life destroyed except their own.